


Eyes Shut

by secondstar



Category: London Spy
Genre: Character Study, M/M, post episode one, post episode two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 01:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5227904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondstar/pseuds/secondstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a certain emptiness that Danny felt inside of him. He couldn’t place it, necessarily. It wasn’t in his heart, though poems and purple prose had always made him believe that would be where his heart ache would live, but he felt it everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eyes Shut

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not really sure how to tag this, but here we are.   
> Post Episode One. I've watched Episode Two, but I don't think there are any spoilers? I'm tagging it anyways in case there are.  
> Maybe after this one I will be able to write more than one k of Danny. 
> 
> Not beta'd. 
> 
> I can be found on tumblr @attoliancrown.

There was a certain emptiness that Danny felt inside of him. He couldn’t place it, necessarily. It wasn’t in his heart, though poems and purple prose had always made him believe that would be where his heart ache would live, but he felt it everywhere. His entire being ached, from his limbs feeling like lead to his eyes which stung constantly. He felt the emptiness consume him even though he kept going. With one foot in front of the other, he tried his best. 

Every time he thought he had no tears left, his body surprised him by more streaming down his face. He wanted to stop, wished he would stop crying at the mere thought of Alex, of Alistair, but he couldn’t hold back. 

Alex was everywhere, his life so intertwined in Danny’s own that he couldn’t go about the most mundane tasks without thinking about Alex. In the shower, Danny sank to his knees, the water cascading down over him as he sobbed, thinking about Alex in the bathtub, of them shaving beside each other, even brushing their teeth. 

He laid in bed, unable to sleep because the phantom smell of Alex clung to the sheets despite the fact that Danny had washed them twice since he’d gone missing. Alex clung to the air, and sometimes Danny thought he could hear Alex’s quiet, deep voice whisper to him in the dark of night. Danny smoked by the window, staring down at the view across the way, his leg shaking nervously while he wished for one night’s rest. 

Unable to sleep, Danny chain smoked. His room mates partied, went to clubs. He used to live that life, but it felt like some distant Danny who no longer existed. Alex had wrapped his arms around him, had pulled him away from a life of clubs and drugs, and now Danny couldn’t go back. He wasn’t that person anymore, and he felt broken because of it. Alex had made Danny feel whole for the first time in a long time, probably in Danny’s entire life, and now he was gone. 

The only person Danny had left was Scottie, who he’d had before. Danny had relied on Scottie countless times in the past, could show up at all hours, high or no, only to be welcomed. Only now, Danny didn’t feel the same sense of ease as he once did in Scottie’s presence. Something about their meeting still felt off to Danny, how Scottie reacted. 

Danny knew, then, that Alex had accepted who he was after telling Alex of his past, but he was still gone. The one person besides Scottie who had stayed was now gone. Danny wiped back tears as he took a drag of his cigarette as he thought of the irony of it all. He was alone, again, except for Scottie. His life was a series of ups and downs with one constant. 

Scottie was a friend to him, and yet still felt like a stranger. 

And now Danny was scared for his life and even Scottie wanted him to give up, to stop pursuing Alex’s killer. Danny paced back and forth outside of Scottie’s house, unable to decide if he wanted to even bother. He couldn’t be sure who he could trust, even if Scottie could be trusted. 

Scottie had never done anything to hurt Danny, though. Not once. He’d always been a shoulder to cry on, a good listener who had done more for Danny than any other handful of people Danny called friends. 

Finally, Danny knocked on the door. 

Scottie answered, like Danny knew he would. Danny feigned a smile as he put his cigarette out on the stoop. There was an ashtray just inside the door, put there especially for him. 

“I’m sorry to bother,” Danny said as he stepped inside. 

“You’re never a bother, Danny,” Scottie assured him. Danny rubbed at his eyes once last time as he followed Scottie into the depth of his house. “I was just finishing up some work, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” He said, sitting down on the sofa. “Can I have tea?” 

“Make yourself at home, you know you can have anything,” Scottie said, smiling at him before disappearing towards his office. Danny took off his jacket, then made his way to the kitchen where he put a kettle on. 

He knew the nooks and crannies of Scottie’s house well from when he spent a month with him almost ten years ago. It didn’t feel like that long ago, but at the same time he felt like he knew Scottie for his entire life. In a way, he had. Before Scottie, before that horrible night of debauchery, Danny had been someone else. 

Now, he was someone else again, like some sort of phoenix that was reborn into someone new. Before that night, he had been young and naive, thinking that nothing could ever hurt him. How wrong he had been then, even while he was with Alex. Never did he think that he would find his boyfriend, dead in a trunk, his own trunk. He wondered if he would live another life, would be reborn again after this, his eyes opened anew by some other horror of the world. 

The sound of the kettle boiling brought Danny back to the present. He poured the hot water over his tea leaves, letting them steep. He watched the clock, rocking back and forth as he thought about Alex, his entire body aching in that indescribable way that was all encompassing. 

It took everything within him to pick up the mug of tea after adding sugar and a bit of cream to it and take a sip of it. For some reason Scottie’s tea always tasted better than his own. It didn’t make sense to him, but at the same time it did. Scottie’s tea meant safety, that nothing could touch Danny while he was there. 

Danny sat at the kitchen table, slowly spinning the hot mug of tea around on the table as he stared at the wall, his mind blank. Something about Scottie’s house felt like peace in a way that his own flat didn’t. His flat held memories of Alex,whereas he was completely absent in Scottie’s house. He couldn’t picture Alex there, because he’d never been. Alex didn’t belong in the same place as Scottie did, Danny knew that. The reason he’d kept them apart for so long was because of that very fact. They weren’t in the same parts of Danny’s life. Scottie was a constant in Danny’s life, but Danny knew while he was with Alex that they were separate. 

Alex didn’t die until after he’d met Scottie, but--

Danny sipped at his tea, not allowing himself to think that Scottie could have anything to do with Alex’s death. The phone rang, which made Danny jump, his entire body flinching, the constant vigilance he’d been on putting his body on edge. 

He walked towards the office, where he heard Scottie speaking in hushed tones. He almost walked back towards the kitchen, until he overheard his own name. 

“Danny won’t talk,” Scottie said. Danny held his breath, his eyes wide. He took a step back away from the office, but the wooden floors beneath his feet betrayed his movement, making a creaking noise. Danny covered his mouth with his hand before walking swiftly back to the kitchen, dumping out his tea. He put the mug down in the sink without rinsing it. Scottie’s footsteps could be heard down the hall, coming towards him as he grabbed his jacket off the back of the sofa, his heart beating quickly.

“Danny!” Scottie called as Danny walked out the door, practically running towards the bus stop. He didn’t know who Scottie was talking to, but he did know that he could no longer trust him. He was completely alone; had no one he could trust. In a way, he felt dead already, his life completely shattered once more. 

Somehow, he had to survive. He had to find out what happened to Alex; he was determined, no matter what, even if it killed him.


End file.
